To this logic Trutvetter also devoted himself, and in it he taught
his pupils. He had just then published a series of treatises on the
subject. To him this study was real earnest. Compared with others,
he has shown in these excursions a cautious and discreet moderation,
and no inclination for the quarrels and verbal combats often dear to
logicians. The same can be said of his colleague Usingen. Trutvetter
has shown also that he enjoyed and was widely read in earlier and
modern, especially, of course, in Scholastic literature, including
the works not only of the most important, but also of very obscure
authors. We can imagine what delight he took in all this when in his
professor's chair, and how much he expected from his pupils.
At Erfurt meanwhile, and by this same philosophical facility, a
fresh and vigorous impulse was being given to that study of
classical antiquity, which gave birth to a new learning, and ushered
in a new era of intellectual culture in Germany. We have already had
occasion to refer to the movement and influence of Humanism at the
schools which Luther attended at Magdeburg and Eisenach. He now
found himself at one of the chief nurseries of these 'arts and
letters' in Germany, nay, at the very place where their richest
blossoms were unfolded. Erfurt could boast of having issued the
first Greek book printed in Germany in Greek type, namely, a
grammar, printed in Luther's first year at the University. It was
the Greek and Latin poets, in particular, whose writings stirred the
enthusiasm and emulation of the students. For refined expression and
learned intercourse, the fluent and elegant Latin language was
studied, as given in the works of classical writers. But far more
important still was the free movement of thought, and the new world
of ideas thus opened up.
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